


domestic

by bonebo



Series: McReyes Week '16 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Violence, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: Some nights, Jesse can't sleep.





	

Some nights, Jesse can’t sleep.

He’s taken to walking the halls of Blackwatch HQ as a kind of remedy--letting his mind wander as his feet follow paths his subconscious knows, working through the knots that keep his mind from rest and tiring his body until sleep is less an option and more a requirement. It’s effective, most of the time.

Not tonight.

He’s coming up on Gabriel’s office--end of the hall, last door on the right--when he hears the yelling. It’s muffled by the thick door but still distinctly angry, enough to make Jesse halt; for a moment he’s back in a beaten-up trailer in Santa Fe, just a kid hiding behind his bedroom door too afraid to do anything but listen. But as soon as he can he swallows down the trepidation that raises goosebumps along his skin and tells himself he made it out, tells himself he’s home, tells himself the demons of his past can’t get reach him here.

It helps, but only a little. Jesse moves closer.

A step away from the office door, and he can pick out two voices: the low, rumbling growl that Jesse has come to associate with Gabriel’s ire, and a higher, louder voice, a shade of Strike-Commander Morrison that’s darker than any of his documentaries or speeches. They’re arguing back and forth--about what, Jesse can’t tell--and that realization settles most of the anxiety still churning in his gut, soothing in its normalcy. The Commanders bickering is just as common around this base as the showers running out of hot water.

But then there’s a crash--a yelp Jesse can’t place--and that’s definitely _not_ normal. For a moment there is silence from inside the office, and Jesse falters, waiting--

It's not Gabriel’s rumble that eventually breaks the quiet, but Jack’s voice is dark all the same. The doorknob turns and Jesse has but a moment to throw himself back against the wall, praying he won’t get caught as he hides behind it; the door stays open as Jack storms off down the hall, blessedly hiding him from sight as Overwatch’s Strike-Commander stomps down the hallway.

Jesse takes a few moments to just breathe--to collect his thoughts, urge his heart to stop pounding. His blood roars in his ears as he peeks around the open door.

Gabriel is standing behind his desk, head dropped between his shoulders; even from here, Jesse can see the way they heave. The small ceramic skull Reyes had picked up on a mission in Peru is missing from the corner of his desk--lying instead in a small scattered pile of white shards by the wall. Jesse swallows the unease rising in his throat, choking his breath, and hazards a step into the threshold.

“...Commander?”

Gabriel flinches, head snapping up, and Jesse’s heart aches at it. A thin cut arcs under Gabriel’s eye, crimson dully seeping over the bruise rising on his cheekbone. He straightens sharply, his gaze turning to ice, dark eyes narrowed and guarded.

“McCree.” His voice is clipped, rough; his usual level of collected, and Jesse would admire how quickly Reyes’s shields returned if he wasn’t so concerned. “It’s late. What do you want?”

“I…” _I heard you fighting. I wanted to help._ “...I was just walking, and heard a noise--”

“Go back to your bunk,” Gabriel cuts in, sinking down into his chair like a stone. He grabs for the papers scattered across his desk, and the golden band around his finger gleams like a chain in the fluorescent light.

Jesse should--he knows he should. This is meddling in things outside his knowledge, well outside his experience; it’s not his business. Reyes and Morrison are both adults, have probably been a thing longer than he’s been alive, and his Commander has made it clear that Jesse’s input is not wanted.

He knows he should leave. But standing there and staring at the strongest man he knows made so subdued, Jesse finds himself back in Santa Fe; watching his momma toss back another shot of whiskey to forget the feeling of his pa’s hands on her. Watching her suffer, alone.

He’s already left, once. He should leave again.

“You don’t deserve it,” Jesse says instead, his mouth dry; he stares at Gabriel and sees the way his dark eyes snap up at the comment, briefly hold his gaze, dart away again. Maybe it’s supposed to look like indecision--but on the warm lines of his face, over the bruise rising on his cheekbone, in the very thin trickle of blood sluggishly streaking down his face, it cannot be read as anything but dejection. Jesse wishes--suddenly, fiercely--that he could kiss it away.

“You don’t, Commander.” Jesse takes a step forward, emboldened by conviction; justice won’t dispense itself. “I don’t know--”

“That’s right,” Gabriel cuts in, looking up from his desk again. His voice lacks its usual bite--a dog muzzled by submission--and it’s hollow and so utterly wrong that it makes Jesse’s heart ache. “You don’t know, Jesse. Dismissed.”

Everything in his body protests leaving, abandoning Gabriel in this state; from his set stance to his cracked voice. He’s seen what happens--he can’t leave Gabriel alone like this. He _can’t_. “Jefe--”

 _“Dismissed_ , Agent McCree.”

“No!” Jesse says urgently, taking a sudden, quick step toward the desk--Gabriel flinches back as if Jesse’d come at him with Peacekeeper drawn, and McCree berates himself for it, the tiny voice in the back of his head that serves as his conscious scolding.

_Too aggressive. Take a deep breath. Calm the fuck down._

Anger is exactly the opposite of what Gabriel needs, right now. Anger is _Morrison’s_ weapon.

“No,” Jesse repeats after a long moment, his voice softer this time; something he tries to balance between sympathetic and worried, without coming across as the patronizing act he knows his Commander hates. Judging the impassive look schooled onto Gabriel’s face, Jesse can’t really tell if he’s succeeded or not.

“I ain’t gonna leave you, Commander--not like this.” He heaves a sigh, shoulders slumping as he dares to catch Gabriel’s gaze, tries to coax some emotion out of it. “Granted, I don’t know what in the hell is going on between you and Morrison, but I can see the signs clear as day. Tell me somethin’ jefe, that the only thing of yours he broke, lately?”

“McCree,” Gabriel warns--but Jesse has never been good at listening to warnings.

And the lack of a no, the fact Gabriel hasn’t chased him out, is telling.

“And lemme guess,” Jesse continues, ever heedless to the danger, the alarm in Gabriel’s eyes. Reckless. “He ain’t never broke a single thing of his, has he? And he always comes back the next day with apologies and excuses, all sweet-like, good ol’ golden boy again. Always the hero, never the villain.”

Silence lays heavy in the room, nigh suffocating, and Jesse knows he should stop. He can see the way Gabriel’s shoulders quiver, holding back his emotion, keeping everything bottled up; Jesse needs to tear down those walls, get through to the only person in his life who gave a damn about him. He needs it more than he’s needed anything in his life--to repay the debt he’s carried, since a man in black came into the desert and plucked him out of a godforsaken gorge.

Gabriel saved him, once. Maybe Jesse can do the same.

“Maybe he buys you something, promises he ain’t never gonna do it again. And every time you believe him.” He’s right in front of the desk now, able to reach out and lay his hand on it. His fingers splay out, close enough to Gabriel’s to feel his heat but not quite touching; despite how badly he wants to, it’s not worth the risk of setting Gabriel off. “He ain’t never gonna do it again, he says, and then you go and do something that sets him off and he does it again and you cain’t never figure out just what in the hell you done this time to make him so mad.”

His voice is quiet now, a hushed, reserved whisper. The gold band looks like its burning into Gabriel’s skin, tight enough to choke.

“Always comes to your places--your office, your dorm. Never his office or his rooms, never out in public.” The words come in a rush on the heels of memories, and Jesse knows he’s babbling now, opening his mouth so the words he’s kept locked inside can spill free. It’s frantic, ugly; Gabriel isn’t the only one airing out a dirty secret tonight. “And he yells at you, don’t he? ‘Course he does. Berates you, calls you all sorts of mean names, and when you try and defend yourself, he pulls this shit. Breaks something, hits you. Tells you it’s your fault--”

 _“Enough!”_ Gabriel finally snaps, his voice breaking on the word, raw and splintered. His shoulders are hunched again, quivering with each carefully-controlled breath; his hands have balled up into fists, tight and white-knuckled where they tremble against the old wood of the desk. Jesse notices the sudden distance between their fingers, and mourns for it.

“Jefe--I was there. I used to live like this. Every. Single. Day.” It’s vague but it’s enough, not needing an explanation--damning to admit, freeing to say, like his shoulders have shifted and adjusted the weight he’s carried on them for all of his life. Even in the face of Gabriel’s distress, he feels marginally better.

Someone else knows. Someone else _knows_ , and it shouldn’t be this liberating but it is. Jesse might have laughed if he wasn’t so goddamned close to choking on his tears. “I know the signs. I see it. Please; I’m begging you. Let me in--talk to me, Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s eyes slowly lift up from the desk, meet Jesse’s; they’re bright with unshed tears. A tense muscle in Gabriel’s jaw twitches, like he’s working hard to keep his expression from crumpling.

“Just….talking,” he starts, his voice thick, a wrecked thing. It’s the only piece of his composure he can’t keep--the one thing that slips past his control--and it’s enough to have Jesse’s heart breaking in two. “That’s it.”

“That’s it,” Jesse agrees, nodding his head; even at that motion Gabriel startles, like he’s strung too tight, ready to snap at any point. “Whatever you wanna talk about. Whatever makes _you_ feel better.”

Later, Jesse will look back and be unable to tell what did it--the offer to help, the insistent kindness, or the focus on Gabriel’s wants and needs first.

But whatever it is, it makes the dam break.

Gabriel Reyes--iron-hearted Commander of Blackwatch, valiant hero of the Omnic Crisis, all around bona fide badass--breaks down. It’s not a harsh meltdown like Jesse expected it to be, and it’s far removed from the dainty sniffles of the movies; it’s uniquely Gabriel, silent but intense. Mighty shoulders shaking with each quiet hiccup that tears itself from his throat, his head lowering, calloused hands coming up to cover his face. All it takes is a small, strangled-sounding keen and Jesse is there, dropping into a crouch by his Commander’s chair to offer himself--

And Gabriel grabs him like he’s dying, all but crushing Jesse against his chest, burying his face in the crook of Jesse’s shoulder. For a moment Jesse’s caught--stunned and uncertain, heartbroken at the pain that Gabriel cries out against his shirt--but slowly, dream-like, his arms come up to wrap around those quaking shoulders, and he squeezes with all the might he can muster.

“It’s gonna be okay, jefe,” he whispers; because it’s all he can think of, all he can imagine Gabriel wants to hear. All he had wanted to hear, back in the dark days of fear and hiding. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna make it okay. I gotcha, and I ain’t gonna let you go.”

Gabriel’s reply is a shudder, a bitten-back sob, and Jesse sighs softly against the soft scruff of his Commander’s temple. He’s got a sinking feeling that neither of them are going to sleep tonight.


End file.
